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Theodore Chronis - Wiktoria Deero July - November 2016
The artworks on show have been hanged up side down. Centred on the idea that in the current era everything has a value: the idea, the concept, the labor, artists have been challenged to create artworks that communicate a narrative regardless, which side they are hang from. The world as-it-is, is more then pure objective fact. In the absence of an holistic image how we see things is filtered through our own perception and consciousness. Is Subjectivity the basis upon which Logic and Truth are determined? The inversion of the artworks on show is a conscious curatorial decision, a statement of self-irony against artistic criticism. This exhibition questions the roles and the need, of artists and curators in our society while exploring on reality and representational perspectives in general.
EXHIBITION BROCHURE


For any further information about the artists on show please contact ArtMoorHouse
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Theodore Chronis UNDERWATER DREAMS, 2011 mixed media on canvas, 180 cm x 150 cm £5,000
Theodore Chronis OATHS OF NARCISSUS, 2014 mixed media, on canvas, 135 cm x 100 cm £4,000
THEODORE CHRONIS Theo Chronis belongs to a new generation of Greek artists who are steadily shaping a new force in the contemporary visual arts scene. He received his degree in contemporary painting from the Athens School of Fine Arts in 2006 and since then he has had two solo shows and regularly participates in group shows and art residencies in Europe and the US. Dividing his time between his Exeter and Athens studios, he has been developing his independent artistic practice and working as an arts instructor and digital artist. His work is part of private collections. The artist’s mixed media paintings under the thematic title “New Originals” using art materials that he makes himself are the practical counterpart to his ongoing research on the history and evolution of figurative painting into the 21st century. Organically fusing contrasting elements of figurative, abstract and expressionist painting with Japanese calligraphy, Chronis’ surrealistic imagery is sculpturally libidinal, intensely personal and painfully self-analytical. The images of bodies in these works function as recognisable points of reference in notional worlds constructed out of emancipated painterly visual elements that aspire to engage the viewer into a dialogue about the nature of the self, perception and reflect on fundamental concepts of human existence. Chronis’ interest in art creation does not stop in traditional painting practice. The different thematic series that he works on interchangeably like “Monologues”, his ink works and abstractions or his pure digital paintings and 3D CGI work are an example of the vast array of techniques, both digital and traditional that he will employ in order to make powerful statements about the real world and share his imaginative visions with a sensitive, active and equally art-loving audience. New Originals New originals are a series of mixed media paintings exploring the boundaries of representation and abstraction. They aspire to engage in dialogue with modernist artistic thought and their creative process could be considered as a rewinding of the abstraction of the image (and especially the image of the human form) that took place in western modernism, following a path of eclectic affinity starting with Cezanne and ending with the abstract expressionists. Seeing the process of the development of one of my works is usually like a walk back in time starting from the abstract and going towards the figurative. I consider myself primarily a figurative painter but a figurative painter who has a deep understanding of the limitations and loopholes of figuration and of painting in general. All my paintings start in a completely abstract, random and loose way of just making the painting surface dirty, and losing as much of control as possible, using splashes, dripping, violent line drawing with charcoal, drawing with my eyes closed or with my off hand, generally everything is acceptable. From that point on a long process of trying to "see" or “discover” an image suggested by these plastic elements begins. Through numerous metamorphoses a work evolves into a picture, usually of a body or of many bodies. This picture is never pre conceived (and thus surprising to me also) and is always the product of a slow and deep reflective process of discovery of dominating forms through simply looking at the paint. Hence the title of this series: New Originals. The Aristotelian concept of mimesis, in a more contemporary form is central to this approach. I see mimesis as the ability of the human mind to conceive of images of known objects out of signs that lie. These signs are the artist’s job to create. And I want to try and focus my work on this zone where emancipated plastic elements become image-constituting signs in a large enough quantity to conjure up a world, or a body. A body-world. The body image is a central leitmotif of these works, associated with libidinal unconscious thought. The process I follow of course works as a kind of automatic writing, the immediate expressive imprints on the painting surface serving as imprints of my own unconscious mind, and what I “see” in them is usually a projection of my own making albeit not a conscious one. The “discovered” images of body parts, body or bodies are evoking the experience of birth, of sexuality, of spirit trapped in flesh, the notion of death and things that are impossible to put to words but are shared as experiences by all mankind. The viewer is invited to make his own projection on the painted surface and discover his or her own meaning in turn. The titles of my works are mere suggestions. My influences range from sumi-e painting of ancient Chinese masters to the great western academic tradition where my own art training belongs, to modernism, to abstract expressionism. These influences appear in my work as three themes usually blended together so as to seem inseparable: the figurative, the gestural and the abstract compositional. I try to work in a way that none of these completely dominates a painting but instead they add to the whole and complement each other. The technique used in this series is also a very integral part of my approach. Most of these works are drawings as much as they are paintings meaning that the process of defining new found forms through the use of lines with charcoal or graphite on an already painted surface -as something that would be traditionally done in preparatory drawings- is incorporated in the painting process itself. The contrasting use of liquid paint like oil, acrylic and gouache using brushes, pallet knives etc and of drawing materials like charcoal or graphite finds its perfect resolution in the use of pastel, which can be used in numerous ways e.g. as a coloured line to draw with or as a vibrant coloured (or greyer toned) glaze to paint over a whole portion of the canvas. The use of this material is so central to my work that since 2013 I have been making my own soft pastels in order to achieve the results I am aiming for. Theo Chronis, 2015
Wiktoria Deero, Moon Hunt acrylic on canvas ,130 cm x 140 cm £4,500
Wiktoria Deero In-Between acrylic on canvas 120 cm x 90 cm £3,000
WIKTORIA DEERO Deero is a painter based in London since 2007. She received her MA from Wimbledon College of Art in 2008. Between 2008 and 2010 her work was represented by Rollo Contemporary Art Gallery, London. She is currently one of the artists' resident at the Hospital Club Gallery in Covent Garden, London and the Artist Persona for the Eurostar, London. Her works have been continuously exhibited in UK and Europe.
Artists’s Statement Built in colourful layers of vibrant acrylic, her paintings explore the idea of “somewhere spaces” appearing as escapist worlds or wonderlands. The dreamy landscapes "float" between the sky and the forest, lakes and gardens, involving the viewer in the play between what is familiar and that which is unknown, only to settle in and confuse the viewer's eye. Coming through the materiality of the paint, the compositions conceal rather than reveal their subject – that creates the paradoxical polarity which is the main source of Deero’s work.